Wide Courses

by James B. Connolly

Yes, he discerned much truth in what I said, but consider that poor fisherman who could have his good rum merely for the landing—no other cost, none whatever—he, a friend of Mr. Miller, was sending it as a gift for the holiday Christmas time. And that rum—consider the piteously cold nights hauling the nets when a drink of good rum was so soothing, so grateful, so inspiring. And a little favor like that—the Colonial Government would [pg 52] not be—truly not—and if I did not take the rum that poor fisherman of Auvergne would have none in its stead. He could not afford it, the duty was so high—an impossible duty, as no doubt I knew.

I did know, and also I remembered many a drink of Saint Pierre rum I'd had on a cold night in Newfoundland and no duty paid on it, and many a cold night hauling herring when I didn't have it, but wished I had, and would've gone a long ways to get it, duty or no duty. And then I remembered how Miller had been pretty decent to me that day—the little brooch he'd bought for the baby I could even then feel in my vest pocket—and I said all right, and when half an hour later a dory slipped up to the side of the Aurora and a keg was handed over the rail I didn't ask any questions, but took and stowed it under the cabin run.

Next morning we sailed, and, after a four hours' easy run, made Auvergne, a little port in Placentia Bay, tucked away between two headlands—one easterly, one westerly. Coming from Saint Pierre, it was, of course, the westward one we rounded. According to directions, I ground out two long and two short woofs on the fog-horn, at which a man pops from behind a big rock and waves a handkerchief three times.

Well, that was according to directions, too, and I drops a dory over the side with Sam Leary and [pg 53] Archie Gillis and the keg in it, and tells them to row over to the beach, ask the name of the lad that jumped from behind the rock, and if it was the same as on the tag to leave the keg with him. It was about a mile to the bit of beach, and the dory was almost there, when from behind the easterly headland comes the revenue-cutter. "That looks bad," I says, "but we'll say we've come for fresh water, that our tanks were leakin', and that we had to have fresh water to cook dinner, and Sam and Archie in the dory—'specially Sam—they'll have wit enough to empty the keg over the side and go on up as if they was really lookin' for water."

And that's what would 'a' happened if it'd not been for the thirst that Sam Leary and Archie Gillis most always had with them. They see the revenue-cutter, and they knew just what they oughter done, but they couldn't let go that keg without having one last drink out of it, and when they got that drink down they couldn't help thinking what a pity to waste so much good rum, and taking a look back at the cutter, and seeing she was still half a mile away—"Time enough," says Sam to Archie—"this lad behind the big rock'll have something to stow it in," and he and Archie walks without any hurry up to the rock where the man was hiding.

But instead of one man behind that rock, there [pg 54] was six, and right away there was a battle. Sam and Archie bowls over a couple and gets away up the beach and safe among rocks, but the revenue people got the keg. By that time the cutter was alongside us, and so they wouldn't get the little Christmas keg I had tucked away for John Rose I pulled the plug out of it in no time and let it drain into her bilge. And that was an awful waste of good liquor, and I knew John Rose would grieve when I told him.

They had a clean case against me, and I was taken with the Aurora to Harbor Grace for trial. When they asked me what I had to say, I told 'em that I was simply bringing a little keg of rum from a man in Saint Pierre to his friend in Auvergne. They asked me the name of the man in Saint Pierre, and I said I didn't know. They asked me the name of the man in Auvergne, and I said I didn't know. "Was this the man?" they asks, and shows me the tag on the keg. I didn't answer. And they went on to show there was no man in Auvergne by that name, and what were they to understand by that?

I told them I didn't know—it was past me. And it cert'nly was. But they knew what to make of it, they said. There were people in Auvergne doing this illegal business under false names. And I had used a false name, and to try to tell the honorable [pg 55] court that I did not know the name of the man in Saint Pierre who gave me the rum, nor the man I was bringing it to—why, I knew very well who gave me the rum, and I knew who I was bringing it to, and if the truth were known, I knew a lot more about the rum-smuggling traffic. And they were going to put a stop to it.

And they laid a fine of twenty-five hundred dollars against my vessel. Maybe you might think that a pretty heavy fine, but that's nothing. Almost any little local magistrate down that way can soak an American skipper or owner for almost any amount and get away with it. And how's that? Well, we pay two or three dollars a barrel to Newfoundland fishermen for herring. Before we went down here the St. John's merchants used to pay them about fifty cents a barrel, and it's the St. John's merchants who have all the money and came pretty near running Newfoundland.

Well, when my little local magistrate fines me twenty-five hundred dollars I said I wouldn't pay it, that I'd stir things up at Washington, and so on, but they only laughed at me, and put her up for sale.